7 Tips For Staging Your Home

7 Tips For Staging Your Home

7 Tips for Staging Your Home

Make your home warm and inviting to boost your home’s value and speed up the sale process.

The first step to getting buyers to make an offer on your home is to impress them with its appearance so they begin to envision themselves living there. Here are seven tips for making your home look bigger, brighter, and more desirable.

1. Start with a Clean Slate

Before you can worry about where to place furniture and which wall hanging should go where, each room in your home must be spotless. Do athorough cleaningright down to the nitpicky details like wiping down light switch covers. Deep clean and deodorize carpets and window coverings.

2. Stow Away Your Clutter

It’s harder for buyers to picture themselves in your home when they’re looking at your family photos, collectibles, and knickknacks. Pack up all your personal decorations. However, don’t make spaces like mantles and coffee and end tables barren. Leave three items of varying heights on each surface, suggests Barb Schwarz ofStaged Homesin Concord, Pa. For example, place a lamp, a small plant, and a book on an end table.

3. Scale Back on Your Furniture

When a room is packed with furniture, it looks smaller, which will make buyers think your home is less valuable than it is. Make sure buyers appreciate the size of each room by removing one or two pieces of furniture. If you have an eat-in dining area, using a small table and chair set makes the area seem bigger.

4. Rethink Your Furniture Placement

Highlight the flow of your rooms by arranging the furniture to guide buyers from one room to another. In each room, create a focal point on the farthest wall from the doorway and arrange the other pieces of furniture in a triangle around the focal point, advises Schwarz. In the bedroom, the bed should be the focal point. In the living room, it may be the fireplace, and your couch and sofa can form the triangle in front of it.

5. Add Color to Brighten Your Rooms

Brush on a fresh coat of warm, neutral-color paint in each room. Ask your real estate agent for help choosing the right shade. Then accessorize. Adding a vibrant afghan, throw, or accent pillows for the couch will jazz up a muted living room, as will a healthy plant or a bright vase on your mantle. High-wattage bulbs in your light fixtures will also brighten up rooms and basements.

6. Set the Scene

Lay logs in the fireplace, and set your dining room table with dishes and a centerpiece of fresh fruit or flowers. Create other vignettes throughout the home — such as a chess game in progress — to help buyers envision living there. Replace heavy curtains with sheer ones that let in more light.

Make your bathrooms feel luxurious by adding a new shower curtain, towels, and fancy guest soaps (after you put all your personal toiletry items are out of sight). Judiciously add subtle potpourri, scented candles, or boil water with a bit of vanilla mixed in. If you havepets, clean bedding frequently and spray an odor remover before each showing.

7. Make the Entrance Grand

Mow your lawn and trim your hedges, and turn on the sprinklers for 30 minutes before showings to make your lawn sparkle. If flowers or plants don’t surround your home’s entrance, add a pot of bright flowers. Top it all off by buying a new doormat and adding a seasonal wreath to your front door.

G.M. Filisko is an attorney and award-winning writer who occasionally rearranges her furniture to find the best placement—and keep her dog on his toes. A frequent contributor to many national publications including Bankrate.com, REALTOR® Magazine, and the American Bar Association Journal, she specializes in real estate, business, personal finance, and legal topics.

About Halo Group Realty

We understand that for many people, buying or selling a home is probably the largest investment decision that they will make in their lifetime. Halo Group Realty LLC thus became active in selling Real Estate in 2008 and was setup to make this process a simple and painless transaction. Your dedicated agent will guide you every step of the way to make purchasing or selling your home enjoyable and exciting… as it should be!

Today, Halo Group Realty LLC is at the cutting edge of technology in offering assistance to those in need of real estate services, and we have revolutionized the method of delivering education to consumers. Halo is established as the place for consumers to get the knowledge and assistance they deserve in the process of facilitating the Real Estate transaction, positioning you in the best possible situation to get the best price when you either to buy or sell. With leadership, innovation and forward thinking, Halo Group Realty, LLC is poised to make a huge impression in the real estate market while providing clients the keys to home ownership.

Our goal is to help make your dream a reality and take away all of the stress that goes along with purchasing or selling your home. Whether you are purchasing new construction, an existing home, or just an open space for future enjoyment, representation by a Halo agent is a valuable tool in making your dream become a reality.